Jakub Pawłowicz

  1. Civilian memory of war - 2026-01-07

    In the light of recent events, where USA captured Venezuelan dictator Maduro, I would like to point something - the majority of US citizens lack civilian memory of what a war is. For the past 160 years (let's spare Pearl......

  2. Coping with Global Anxiety - 2026-01-01

    After years-long break I'm back to a healthy routine of news consumption: I gave it up except for a catch up every 3 months to see what has changed.It was working great for me when I was in my early......

  3. My Music, part 2 - 2025-08-31

    The updateIf you follow this log you know I have been looking for my music for a quite a while now.It's been 3.5 years since I wrote that post and my skills, perspective, and attitude keep evolving.I've had my ups......

  4. Get rid of the military - 2025-03-04

    In my previous post I expressed my doubts on how military spending is presented to general public.And I feel bad about living in a country which 1) misguides us about how much money military matters cost; 2) spends that money......

  5. Life is not a sprint - 2025-02-10

    Recently I had a nice conversation with my brother about retiring. Since we are in our 40s, there's still a long way ahead, but we clearly share the same outlook on retiring: we won't.My brother's journey in IT has seen......

  6. Look up and down - 2025-02-05

    Twenty-five years ago I began my studies, but it wasn't computer science I always wanted to or physics which I ultimately ended up majoring in, but astronomy. Although I quickly abandoned it for physics, I still keep reading about related......

  7. Couple thoughts on AI - 2024-10-06

    Consider me someone with weird taste, but I love AI - the storytelling, the moral dillemas, finally the world of far future when the protagonist is awoken by an alien race. Of course I'm talking about the Spielberg's movie, not......

  8. On being pescetarian - 2024-07-31

    End of this month marks 4 years since I went pescetarian - for those of you unfamiliar, that's not eating meat except for that coming from seafood.I never was a heavy meat eater, so this change came pretty natural. I......

  9. The way I build software - part 2 - 2024-02-19

    Since I wrote the previous post on this topic not much has really changed. I'm still using my stack of choice and enjoying it more than ever. However from time to time I find a piece of techology that feels......

  10. All the time - 2024-01-11

    Two weeks ago, on December 24th, we were hosting a traditional Christmas' Eve dinner for 4. At 4pm in the afternoon, when we started preparing the dinner the electricity went out. The whole village was dark and many had the......

  11. Busy times - 2022-09-07

    You haven't heard from me in almost three months, but I'm still around, just very, very busy!August-September time here is harvest time, which currently keeps me busy with abundance of everything - apples, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, or mushrooms. Amazing time,......

  12. De-christianization - 2022-06-16

    A week ago I completed my quest to leave church. It's a good feeling to have the quest behind me, and I wish everyone who want to do a similar thing should be able to do it easily.Since I was......

  13. God Syndrome - 2022-05-25

    Recently I have failed miserably by planting some of my seedlings too early. The day after frost happened and I lost some peppers and tomatoes. I cried that day as I put a lot of effort into nurturing them, but......

  14. Windows vs Walls - 2022-04-13

    Questions are like open windows, while answers are like walls.Consider the difference between the two: why did he do that to me? vs. he did that to me because he is a bad person.The former can lead to multiple answers,......

  15. Leverage it! - 2022-04-01

    Everything in our lives can be a leverage.At some point in my life I learned how to speak, and I leveraged it by telling everyone around that I was hungry ;-)Then came reading, so I could not rely on others......

  16. Ideal Consumers - 2022-03-23

    But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but......

  17. Solving meta problems - 2022-03-11

    Let's face it, most of us solve meta problems.My job is to build computer programs for people overseas, which allows them to run learning programmes or survey people.Then when I get paid, I pay taxes, bills, and buy food (plus......

  18. On dying - 2022-02-17

    I recently attended a funeral. The person who died was a 92 years old man who spent his last ~40 years fighting paralysis, then diabetes, which cost him both of his legs, then disability, then inability to leave this world......

  19. Race to bottom - 2022-01-26

    Yesterday, I saw "Take Your Pills" documentary which explores drug, mostly Adderall and Ritalin, (ab)use in USA. While the movie has its higs and lows when it comes to storytelling, it's good at looking at the topic from different points......

  20. Way upstream - 2022-01-25

    "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." -- Desmond TutuTo me it's a beautiful way of saying, that we......

  21. My Music - 2022-01-19

    n. music - anything that makes your heart sing -- Scott Hilton-ClarkeThe far pastI grew up in a countryside in a house on the edge of a huge forest. As a kid I was spending my days out there picking......

  22. More is coming - 2022-01-14

    As you may have noticed my site has changed recently. There's certainly more focus on the "log" now, which is very intentional: I am going to write more.At times when I chat with people around me, I hear (often in......

  23. Less people - 2020-07-22

    On the other day I read a BBC story about dropping fertility rates and how that's gonna affect our society.Let me tell you something.There are already too many of us here, and if we don't stop, we're gonna kill our......

  24. Unlinked - 2020-07-03

    I long hesitated about removing my LinkedIn profile, but it has not proved useful in past few years, so I happily let it go.Now my shortened resume lives here, and, just for reference, the old one was archived by WebArchive....

  25. Nomadic nature - 2020-05-17

    Today I realised my true nature is nomadic.I only wanted to write it down here, so I can relate to this very moment in the future....

  26. Endless hacking - 2020-04-18

    I feel like writing web software is endless hacking - it's like bunch of different technologies glued together so they may work, but sometimes they don't for no apparent reason.A few years ago a friend of mine (hey Bianka!) had......

  27. Small things - 2020-03-30

    I love the fact that in decimal notation you can change 0.5 into 0.25 by adding just one character, and the same goes for 0.25 -> 0.125, 0.5 -> 0.75, 0.75 -> 0.875, etc.Small pleasures make life better....

  28. Think about others - 2020-03-23

    It's year 2000-something. A white couple moves into a small village in a Japanese countryside. Days go one by one, seasons change, those two try to blend in, in the meantime they see how locals live close to the nature,......

  29. Life is simple - 2020-03-08

    Life is simple.We live to work, play, and socialize.We sleep to rest.We ingest and excrete to keep our internals healthy.We think......now here comes the trouble, thinking takes us wherever we want, overthinking shatters that into pieces. And then there are......

  30. It's bloody disgusting - 2020-01-27

    Disclaimer #1: My family is Polish, I was born in Poland and lived 35 out of my 38 years here, so this is my completely biased opinion about my home country.Disclaimer #2: This is a rantOh well, where to start.I......

  31. We must change - 2020-01-23

    I found an inspiring article on BBC News about climate change and how to tackle it, and the following part speaks right into my heart:People must use less trasport, eat less red meat, and buy fewer clothes if the UK......

  32. Rewards - 2020-01-21

    If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always......

  33. Hell is other people - 2020-01-20

    Killing one's creativity and motivation with uncertainty and doubt is a crime against life....

  34. Thank you, Marie - 2019-12-11

    I listen to your songs now, as I've been doing for the most of my life.I don't know when I heard you for the first time, but I clearly remember seeing Roxette's poster at my friend's house when I was......

  35. The patient fan (two years later) - 2019-11-22

    As you know I called myself a patient fan two years ago. Guess what, I know almost nothing about Star Wars Episode IX!I am glad you all have seen the trailers (my family told me there are some!) and haven't......

  36. Craving for sugar - 2019-08-15

    Last 3 months of my life were like a rollercoaster ride fuelled by couple of decisions back in May. I didn't expect those would have such an impact on my life, so I welcomed them happily only to end up......

  37. Goodbye Twitter - 2018-09-24

    It's been almost a year since I last actively used Twitter, and honestly, I've never missed it much during that time. Sure, I check some of my favourite profiles from time to time, but that's all, I don't need Twitter......

  38. Notes to future self - part 2 - 2018-02-16

    Hello older Jakub. Since the time you wrote down that list there are couple more notes to be added. So I hope you still...... know how to remove oneself from any equation;... love people and value things not the other......

  39. New beginnings - 2018-01-14

    "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." -- C.S Lewis...

  40. Christmas gifts - 2017-12-24

    As far as I remember I've always had trouble getting presents for my family. As Christmas time approached I felt more nervous, looking for ideas everywhere, procrastinating it as far as I could.That's no more these days.Couple of years ago......

  41. From within - 2017-12-01

    We've all heard that a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth, which in the "overconnected" world is more dangerous than ever. But if we go from macro scale of external world to micro scale of our own mind,......

  42. The patient fan - 2017-11-22

    The very first movie I saw at a cinema was "The Neverending Story" deep in the mid-80s. That's one of the earliest memories from my childhood and also a very fond one. That event, or couple of them as I......

  43. Feedback loops - 2017-11-05

    When people get into software development, sooner or later they figure out the concept of feedback loops. We start with writing some code, then follow with testing it - if it doesn't work we go back to fix it, when......

  44. Dear older generations - 2017-10-08

    I respect you a lot. You were the ones who raised us, who taught us by example how to work hard, who invested a lot of resources in making local and global environments better.However the future (for a short while)......

  45. Notes to future self - 2017-10-04

    Hello older Jakub. Here's your younger self at the age of 35 who hopes you...... are not the lame guy who tells same jokes and stories and bore others to death;... are open-minded and never judge from the standpoint of......

  46. Is it just a distraction? - 2017-09-21

    What was the last time we gave ending the war in Syria a thought, where people are dying daily and major powers are directly involved in it (technically being at war)?Where are the calls for support to Caribbean states recently......

  47. Saying no - 2017-09-10

    Over my career in IT I turned down many offers, sometimes based on location or technology, but mostly based on employer's industry.Choosing who to work for boils down to the question whether employer's business is fairly moral or not. So......

  48. Fellow humans - 2017-08-20

    Over the years I've built a folder with words of wisdom. I often reach them to find inspiration or moral guidance.The one I came across today is this: "We were all human beings until race disconnected us, religion separated us,......

  49. On happiness - 2017-08-11

    Two years ago I learned about hedonic adaptation and it changed my life forever.To those of you who haven't came across it, it's (after Wikipedia) an observed tendency in humans to return to a stable level of happiness after major......

  50. The bit about myself - 2017-07-30

    It's only the second post on this log's return, but I chose a truly hard topic to write about: something meaningful about myself. So let's do it, there's no try.What defines me?Couple of months ago a friend of mine asked......